Actually the first paragraph of this grifter's "Get Out Of Responsibility Free" blabbing was pretty amazing for a whole 'nother reason, but we'll get to that towards the end. For now, let us marvel at how -- like every other god damn Republican hog feeding at the Beltway trough -- this influential, life-long, hard-core Conservative has abruptly started describing his Republican party as if it were some hostile, alien Brain Bug which he and a handful of brave mobile infantry managed to capture during their heroic raid on Planet P:

Republicans are beginning to see that the main problem with their presumptive nominee is not his lack of basic knowledge or his inability to stay on the script of sanity for 10 minutes at a time. The problem is Donald Trump’s public character, which no amount of last-minute coaching can change.

Mr. Gerson goes on to express his horror at many things Trump has said, including --

Trump has already raised the possibility that Obama is a Kenyan and a jihadist and that Hillary Clinton was involved in Vince Foster’s murder.

-- without bothering to mention that Trump is doing nothing more or less than singing from the same, well-thumbed ratfuck hymnal that his Republican party was using twenty years ago, and ten years ago, and eight years ago, and four years ago.

Funny, but I don't recall Mr. Gerson throwing his Secret Reagan Dog-Whistle Decoder Ring in the Potomac and storming out of the Party of Personal Responsibility on any of those occasions?

Mr. Gerson continues (with a little emphasis added by me)

Republicans may go into the Cleveland convention with the worst case of buyer’s remorse in American political history. Their presumptive nominee...

For now, Republicans such as Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell are content to criticize the candidate they have endorsed. But a party convention is an up-or-down moment. Will they allow the balloons to drop on a leader with a broken moral compass? Or will they try to change the convention rules — perhaps to require a supermajority in picking a nominee — in an act of desperate resistance? Either way, Republicans are learning the hard way that character counts.

Those awful Republicans! Where did they pick up all of these bad habits?

And now, as promised, we swing back to the first paragraph, to sample Mr. Gerson's little gem of sweet, sweet Strategic Forgettery:

Since Thomas Jefferson’s concubine, Warren Harding’s love nest and Bill Clinton’s innovative intern program, Americans have debated the role of character in leadership.

Yes, Michael Gerson -- eager enabler and word-valet of the worst President in modern history -- worked Bill Clinton's penis into the very first line of a column about Donald Trump, but only because he needed to impart an important lesson about the various gradations of moral failings:

But the concept of character has often been defined too narrowly. Sexual ethics — involving a range of behaviors from doomed longing to cruel exploitation — is a part of it, but not the largest part. “The sins of the flesh are bad,” wrote C.S. Lewis, “but they are the least bad of all sins. All the worst pleasures are purely spiritual: the pleasure of putting other people in the wrong, of bossing and patronizing and spoiling sport, and back-biting; the pleasures of power, of hatred.”

Mr. Gerson then works his way into the body of the column we have already discussed -- a column implying that Donald Trump is some recent and completely aberrant freak of Republican nature, However, by gratuitously introduced the subject of Bill Clinton's affair, Mr. Gerson leaves the door wide open to ask the next logical question: How the fuck do you not remember that your Republican party not only impeached Bill Clinton for this "least bad of all sins" -- it went a million miles out of its way to impeach Bill Clinton?

Mr. Gerson somehow kinda forgets that knowledge of Bill Clinton's "innovative intern program" only came to light as a byproduct of a remorseless, coordinated slash-and-burn witch-hunting campaign conducted by the leaders of Mr. Gerson's Republican party for the expressed purpose of destroying the Clinton Administration by any means necessary.

Mr. Gerson also somehow kinda forgets that all of those attempts by the leaders of Mr. Gerson's Republican party to cripple and overthrow of the Clinton Administration turned out to be just a dress rehearsal for the full-on, seditious, rule-or-ruin racist madness that the leaders of Mr. Gerson's Republican party unleashed seven and a half years ago for the expressed purpose of destroying the Obama Administration by any means necessary.

You see, Mr. Gerson, Donald Trump is the price you have made this country pay for the anarchy you and your Republican party have loosed upon the world.

6 comments:

Here is my biggest concern as a progressive, Trump may actually save the Republican Party rather than destroy it by allowing them to avoid addressing their core issues for another four years.

Gerson et al. are successfully (at least in the Public Square Debate way) using Trump's over-the-top candidacy to deflect conversation about the REAL reason the Republican Party can't win White House anymore and they have only narrowed, not expanded, they Party tent since 2000.

Gerson et al. doesn't need to admit he likes the base EXACTLY as it is, he just needs to STFU for a few months to get a guy (any guy) with Trump's policy ideas, Romney's demeanor, and a willingness to do whatever the oligarchy says.

By Thanksgiving, when Crazy Uncle Liberty has thrown out his "Make America Great" hat, replaced his Trump bumper sticker with "Impeach Killery!", and swears on his mothers grave he never heard of this Trump guy much less voted for him twice, Gerson et al. and the Republican Part will be able to keep on going without changing ONE FUCKING THING about what got them here in the first place.

As usual trgahan cogently expresses concerns that have crossed my mind as well. It's not just that it's infuriating that the Acela Bubble hacks keep up their distancing tactics - as if Trump's fans magically lept full-formed & shrieking from Trump's forehead, like Athena sprang from Zeus's head, having nothing whatsoever to do with GOP Southern Strategy propaganda tactics and techniques employed by these parasitic scribblers for over 3 decades.

I agree that it's worrisome and eminantly likely that once Trump is unceremoniously dumped in November, these parasites'll turn on a dime and direct the shrieking mob at Clinton and the D party, yet again. And the gullible angry mob will only be too willing to go there post haste and without looking back. Denial ain't just a river in Egypt, and there's no citizen more likely to be in denial about his or her votes and affinities than a GOP voter.

This column is possible proof of the tactic, as Gerson has already "gone there" in mentioning the ridiculous Vince Foster "murder," plus the ever-popular Clenis bashing.

It's fun to point and laugh at the barking insanity of it all, but it's not unlikely that this whole shit show won't slow down or change the GOP one iota. They'll be back in force in the Congress with yet another "mandate" to not let Clinton get ONE THING DONE because they SAID SO. What arises out of those ashes is gruesome to contemplate.

As Driftglass and others have noted, the national GOP barely exists at all anymore; it has become just a bunch of billionaire fiefdoms, stupid grifting operations and random lunatics presided over by Prince Reibus. The state level GOP, on the other hand, is strong and quite healthy (not the least thanks to non-voting Democrats). The majority of states now have have total GOP control. However, this majority of states does not come close to a majority of the US population, which is in mostly blue states. Still, if this trend continues (and it may not) then the Federal government domestically will become ever weaker due to Congressional control of the purse. But this trend will also lead to a huge difference in social-economic outcomes between blue and red states. This massive contradiction is completely destabilizing and unsustainable. So, I think, in fact, there will be a major national political transformation within the next 10 years but it's not clear what the new configuration will be.